Journey to the Web
by AlexDoremus
Summary: After being stuck under a mountain for 2,000 years, the Monkey King returns. But he is not in China this time, he is stuck in the middle of Arizona.


Journey to the Web

On a hot and sunny day in summer, a boy and his sister were playing with their parents running after them :  
«Please guys, stop running around it is dangerous...sigh ». The mother stopped yelling at the kids after they disappeared from her field of view.  
« -Whatever, all there is here are rocks and flowers, they won't get hurt », said the father. They were standing in the middle of a canyon in Arizona and the sun was hitting hard on their hats and sunglasses.  
«- You never know with these kids, I've read stories about wolves in places like this on the Internet  
-You really need to stop reading these fan stories you know, you are too naive all these things are not true.  
-It's called fanFICTION, not fan sto... » but they never finished that conversation as they heard a deafening crack, as if the earth itself was breaking apart. At the same time, a blinding yellow flash stroke across the sky.

« What the hell was that ? , yelled the father.  
-I don't know, where are the kids ? Let's gather them and leave ! » As the mother finished talking, the two children were rushing towards them.  
« Mom, dad, that was not funny, you should have told us about fireworks said the elder daughter, who was about 10 years old.  
-Yes sorry guys, it is all we found to have you come back before the wolves eat you, said the father while winking at his wife.  
-Anyway, it's time to go home, get in the car now, said the mother while rolling her eyes up. »

While the car was getting further and further away from the canyon, a human-shaped silhouette was emerging with difficulty from the red rocks of the canyon. It emitted a sound, half shriek half triumphing cry which resonated across the desert, amplified by the canyon and made all animals nearby run away from this place. The kids on the backseat of the car were oblivious to this because of their ear pods but this sound gave the chills to the parents. The mother accelerated nervously without looking back. Once they were back home, the children switched on the TV and were taken aback by what they were looking at. The screen was displaying the place they were just a few hours ago. At least it looked like it, except that the scenery was completely different.  
« We still do not know the reason of this rare and extremely powerful geological event which has led to such catastrophe for our region's culture..., was saying the reporter ». The canyon was split into two parts with a very distinct line, as if some giant had unleashed his axe with full power into the million-year old rock.

« It looks like the cracked eggs from grandpa's farm, muttered the little boy.  
-An egg ? You are saying weird things too now, just like daddy, retorted his sister. Even a dinosaur's hatching would not cause such damage ». The boy nodded and went back to his room to play with his newly bought Nintendo Switch along with his sister.

Meanwhile, the creature who escaped from the canyon had been following the car. It stayed hundred miles away from the car and ran after it, and it was now in the city of Phoenix. It chanced upon the trash containers from behind a Walmart and led by the smell of food jumped into the containers and started ripping apart plastic bags, with his eyes gleaming. The creature was getting faster and faster, not finding what it was looking for. Three words came out of its dried throat, like a voice coming straight out of a graveyard :  
« I...need...food... ». Some rats jumped out of the trash and the creature jumped after them. Or it looked like he was jumping after them. But he seized something else, something that brought a wide smile to his face : a bag of peaches. Just as it was reaching the climax of its peach feast, the creature was interrupted by a Walmart worker coming to throw away the food that could no longer be sold at the end of the day. Intrigued by the sound coming from inside the container he stated loudy :  
« Hey, hey what are you doing in there ? Get out of this trash or I'll hit you ».

Even though the words were harsh, the worker did not say it in a threatening way. In fact, it was more of a casual way, one could imagine him starting conversation with anyone like that, judging by his appearance. He looked about thirty years old, and he was fat. His skin was pink, his nose was smashed flat like a hog's one and had particularly big floating ears, the global impression of his facial geatures was one of a pig. Yet, he had broad shoulders and looked very muscular, his body forged by years of heavy lifting, he clearly was someone not to be fucked with. The creature glanced at him briefly and kept eating his peaches without even bothering to answer. Not used to being ignored, the worker got upset and said angrily« Get out of this trash now or I will come for you », even louder than the first time. This sounded like the last warning to the intruder.

The latter sighed after finishing his meal and starting licking his fingers, not wanting to lose any of the fruit juice. The flippancy of the intruder was too much to bear for the worker who tried to turn the trash container sideways and get the creature out. But it did not wait for the worker to succeed and bolted out meters high before landing softly on the ground just behind the worker. Surprised, but foremost impressed by such jumping power, since he never could jump any higher than a step, the worker turned to face the intruder and started staring at him.  
He was extremely short. He was probably no more than a meter tall, and he was standing extremely straight, he looked extremely proud and confident, the worker realizes, not seeming scared at all. The worker on the contrary was starting to feel something was off and that he was not facing some snooping homeless rat. The stranger was wearing some strange clothes, and they seemed oddly clean : he had a blue silk-like material shirt (but how could someone snooping in trash wear any silk ?), a pair of brown trousers and above them a kilt. But this was no regular kilt, it seemed to be made of tiger skin, while his boots seemed to be stitched from deer skin. All these materials made no sens to the worker, but the most surprising was the stranger's face : now that he had looked at it, he could no longer look at anything else but the stranger's red gleaming eyes. Hypnotized by the rare colors and patterns of his iris, it remained the worker of the huge bonfires hippies used to light during summer, but with more intense colors. He was shaved and had facial hair surrounding his face, much like a monkey's face, following his gaze he smirked and sharp teeth appeared briefly at the edges of his mouth.  
« Who...what are you? », asked the worker while stepping back, thinking he really needs to stop drinking on working hours. The stranger sniffed with contempt, and talked for the first time to the worker :  
« You dare ask who I am mortal ? Very well, I shall answer your question and then you will answer mines. I am called by many names, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, The Jade Palace's Protector of Horses, The Great Sage, equal to Heavens, Sun Wukong. » After this long tirade, the worker was even more confused than before.  
« You are... a monkey ? Mr Kong is that it ?  
-You really are not a fast learner right ? Call me Wukong if you have to. Now tell me one thing : why are these peaches not on a tree ?  
-We could not sell them anymore, they did not look good enough to be put in display, answered the worker not understanding why he seemed so concerned about that matter. I'm Joseph by the way, just Joseph no fancy nicknames. Though some of my friend call me Joe, I guess that counts, answered Joseph as fast as he could, still not sure whether he was facing a God or just some madman. »

This extremely fascinating conversation was ended abruptly by a group of young boys, well-clad. The very moment they entered Wukong's field of view, his eyes started to glow with extreme intensity. Then it all happened very fast, Wukong pulled what seemed to be a little stick out of his ear and whispered « Bigger » until the stick grew stretched to become a 2-meter long iron rod with golden-hooped ends. He then blinked behind the three newcomers and in a big swing of his rod smashed the skulls of the three young boys. Before Joe could react three bodies were laying on the ground.  
« What have you done ? Why did you kill these innocent young boys ?  
-Oh yeah, thank me later for saving your life you dumbass, answered Wukong, rolling his eyes up.  
-What are you talking about you just killed them, I'm gonna call the police you freak.  
-Just look at them now, they are no regular humans, they are demons who were disguised as humans ! ».  
And as Wukong was pointing at the three bodies laying on the ground, their appearance was fading, some were now having horns, some had feathers, and one even had a lizard-like skin and a long tail ending with a claw.  
« Okay, I really need to stop drinking on working hours now. How about we go talking about all this stuff with a good old Chinese Tsingtao beer ? I know a good pla-  
-Tsingtao beer ? They have this here ? Well let's go then what are you waiting for ? I'm thirsty as if I had spent thousands of years under a mountain in the desert ! »

Luckily, the bar where Joe was going was pretty close. Indeed, the duo was a strange show in the streets : compared to Joe Wukong appeared to be so tiny, and with the way he walked, jumping from side to side, many bystanders stared at them and thought « What an agitated child walking with his father ». Sometimes one would stare at Wukong and he would stare back fiercely, making the other quickly continuing his walk away from them. Once settled in the bar, the new-found acolytes talked for hours and hours and drank for hours and hours. Wukong did not seem to be able to get drunk, despite the enormous amount of alcohol he was drinking, with his tiny body. On the other hand, Joseph was getting quite drunk after a few dozens of beers.

When the bar closed, they walked outside and Joe was completely drunk, tilting from side to side on the pavement. Wukong was swiftly dodging his pendulum motion while talking to him :  
« How crazy it is, now that demons have taken over the world, I could not imagine back in my time that humans would agree with that.  
-Yeah well now very few are aware of that, I'm just lucky that my grandpa now stories about that. I always thought he was just a conspiracy-guy but now that I've seen some real demons I regret thinking he was just a fool.  
-No worries, I mean it's crazy, can you imagine that two thousand years ago demons were wandering on the earth trying to eat human ? And now they are everywhere, running big companies and countries and acting as if they were civilised. I wonder what happened to all the other Gods tho'  
-We humans don't see much of a difference I guess, demons may be cruel but some humans are just as cruel, look at the millions of people dying across the world because of war and famine.  
-Yeah but maybe it's some demons stuff I should stop them,after all my mission was to find a pure soul to get the Holy Texts to bring Enlightenment to the world.  
-That sounds very cult-ish, I didn't know you were a fanatic with all that alcohol you drank, laughed Joseph.  
-It was punishment for messing with the Emperor of Gods, but now he isn't around I might as well just enjoy my life and eat peaches. Maybe I will try to scare some demons too to get a nice house and live a good life.  
-You don't seem to be that kind of man, err, monkey, you would be bored to death.  
-It can't be worse than being trapped under a mountain for a thousand years you know.  
-You're right, well here we are at my house, you can take the couch sine you don't have anywhere else to go ». And Joseph collapsed on his bed the very moment he entered his room.

Wukong was left alone and he could not find sleep. Anyway, after a thousand years of meditation, laying his body still was all but what he wanted. Therefore he started to explore the strange objects in Joseph's room. For a monkey trapped in stone for a thousand years everything was new to him. He started to play with the switch. Even though the Monkey King doesn't need light to see in the dark thanks to his eyes which reveal the true nature of things in any environment, he was amazed at the possibility to bring light inside the house. Even more so to be able to control it. « Wow, the Sun God must be so pissed off now, no wonder he disappeared, he is basically useless, this capricious prick can't just scare his human follower by threatening to remove the sun from the sky anymore ».

After playing « Day...Night...Day...Nigh » for about two hours (yeah he is easily fascinated) he switched to explore the rest of the room. After trying to lock himself into the fridge, and then the oven, he was done with experimenting temperature changes and settled for the food inside the fridge. Luckily for him, Joseph has a passion for chocolate ice-cream. And there was neither chocolate nor ice-cream in Ancient China, so he swallowed all of Joseph's precious stock. Feeling bored and still hungry, he settled for fruits. Unfortunately, the amount of ice-cream in the room was inversely proportional to the number of fruits. Despite not finding what he wanted, he found something else : a Xbox. Joseph had forgotten to switch it off when leaving, it was just waiting in stand-by. When Wukong accidentally pushed a button on the remote, the screen lit up and a Skyrim login screen appeared. That made him pull hos mystical rod from his ear and prepare for combat. But after seeing that the images of fight in the screen were not going to get out and confront him, he came closer to the screen. Like really close. His eyelids were touching the screen and he said « Oh how strange it is when I'm up close I can see little dots and if I go back it forms the shape of people ». He decided to sit on the couch to enjoy the cinematics of the game. However, when he sat he pressed a button again and the remote lit up and there was an invitation to start the game on the screen. « Interesting artifact, I think I should pick it up and see what it does... ».

The next morning, Joseph woke up and heard slashing and fighting sounds. Still a bit drunk, he got up quickly and rushed to the room where he told Wukong to stay and was set aback :  
The Monkey King was playing Skyrim while eating peaches with his feet. And he seemed to be doing quite well.  
« What are you doing ? And where did you get all these peaches, I never have any fruits in here !  
-Oh well, I chanced upon this Skyrim thing on your magical mirror and since you were sleeping I thought I might as well use this control artifact, said he while shaking the remote. About the peaches, well there is an orchard a few thousand miles away from here, so while it was 'saving' I decided to go for it, I was hungry. Oh and I like your brown ice in the ice casket.  
-Oh Lord, don't tell me you have eaten my ice-cream... »

Joseph walked to the kitchen and discovered a real mess : The fridge was open, everything was melting and rotting, the oven was open as well and there were random stuff inside, from toilet paper to a mixer, all his cupboards were open (and mostly empty).  
Filled with anger, he returned to the living room and yelled :  
« You can't just eat all my stuff, you are the worst roommate ever ! »  
Wukong didn't move, focused on the monk character he was playing and swinging his rod from right to left, apparently in a grand battle. Seeing he was not getting any reaction, Joseph unplugged the TV and stood in front of Wukong, his arms crossed.  
« Hey, hey, hey ! Why did you do this ? You killed all these people in the mirror world ! I was just starting to kill all the bad guys and free the peasants from the demonic lord !  
-No you were not, it is just a video-game and you should not use other people's things without asking for permission.  
-Well you were asleep and I didn't know what it was so I wanted to try it.  
-And what happened in my kitchen ?  
-Pretty much the same thing, I didn't what was in there so I tried.  
-DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY STUFF AGAIN, yelled Joseph as he tried to tackle Wukong onto the couch. » This move looked much better in his mind than in reality. He forgot a few things :  
he was still pretty drunk, he had the wires of the TV around his feet and he was trying to fight an ancient God who could move faster than he could blink his eyes. Wukong grinned and jumped on the back of Joesph while he was crashing on the couch.

« Everytime I have fun people try to do this, they yell at me, try to catch me and they all end up the same way, ridicule. Well at least you won't get a beating since you managed to do it yourself. »  
When Joseph stood up, he understood that he could not compete with the Monkey King, so he tried a different approcach :  
« Okay, so what if instead of discovering everything by yourself in the new world I help you by showing you and teaching you what things are ? And you might even get to stay on that couch if I want to keep you here.  
-Doesn't look bad to me, but you'd better know that I will stay here for as long as I want to, no one gives order to the Monkey King. ». They both agreed and both thought they outsmarted the other, the sign of the beginning of a great friendship.


End file.
